Wednesday, 21 May 2014

Eavesdropping 101

For the eavesdropping assignment, a group of us went to the band room. We are pretty familiar with the band teachers so it wasn't too out of place that we were there. The conversation lasted for about 15 minutes between the four of us and the teacher. Micayla had been recording out teacher while I observed body posture and language. Morally, it felt wrong to be recording this conversation. Our teacher is a very trusting person, but on the flip side it made me feel like a secret agent. The conversation made me realize that certain teachers treat some of their students like friends. Te way he spoke was very casual and his posture was relaxed. It really just depends on the kind if relationship you have with them. Our conversation involved talking about the amount of grade eights that we're coming up to play in the jazz band, and the general worry about if it would be enough.

If I were writing a short story this assignment would give me insight as to how a dialogue would work between a teacher and a student in a story. At most, anyone can determine the chatacter of a person by the way they act when you are speaking to them. Shifting eyes, interruptions, different topics, body language, etc. Personally, I believe that when someone is keeping eye contact, has their focus on you, and is genuinely listening instead of thinking of the next thing they're going to say is the sign of a good conversationalist.

When more than two people are involved in a conversation, I find that more often than not it results in multiple ideas being said at once without a real base of the conversation. That doesn't go for everyone, or all the time; it is just much easier to talk with someone one on one to stay on topic. I've found that it doesn't really matter what age you are, if you're respectful and willing to actually e invested in a conversation, people will trust you. That overall has been the most surprising to me and it's become more apparent to me over the last year.

Depending on who you're speaking to, spoken conversation can be either really formal or really chill. When you're writing something or texting I find that people care more about what you think if there is no punctuation. If I am writing an email to a teacher, everything has to be perfect. Correct punctuation or who knows what they'll think of me. In person, I am the complete opposite.

Everyone is very different in the way they speak to people they know and don't know.